


this stone is not dead (only broken, only breaking)

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Paris Burning (thecitysmith)
Genre: Dragonstone, Multi, Personified Cities, Sunspear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:04:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7847986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>In a world where cities lead seek revenge and choose loyalties, theirs are the greatest songs, the saddest tales. <em></em></em>
</p><p>--<br/> </p><p>While their children fight and love and tear the world apart for power, the Cities of Westeros play a game all of their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dragonstone dreaming

 

 

The greatest tragedy of the rebellion was not the armies, not the thousands dead, not Elia of Dorne mauled beside her babes (though sunspear would disagree, oh yes she would). 'Twas not young Lyanna is a bed of roses, demanding sweet-sweaty promises from her brother.

Dragonstone was the tragedy. Dragonstone, it was said, was Targaryan to her stone, and so in a time when dragons were hunted down for slaughter she was tragedy. What else could she be?

Dragonstone, all pale skin and pale hair and pale twilight eyes, who had waited years and years for her children to come to her. No one knew what soldier and crone and child brought her about, only that there was once a great storm of ash and lightening, and at the end of it a city-child had been born.

The child waited. She walked the forbidden path of molten rock, deep into the mountain, where the light was red and her shadow was far too great for her body. The island was a dark spot under dark skies and she was alone in wait. It mattered not, for she had dreams and in her dreams she saw the world, what it was and might be. 

The time came to whisper dreams of safety and home home _home_ to Daenys. Daenys whom she had loved, would love best of them all. She was a city of red stone and grey skies. She knew the boiling of fire in her veins, and she knew Valyria's fate. Years before the great disaster, and already she weeped for him.

(even then, even so, she knew how the story went:

every city ends in fire. not every city burns.)

Great was her welcome to the dragons, who loved her, and the dragon people, who wanted her. For long they grew in her black stone and fished of her black waters, and their bastards were her people, her fishers and sailors. They were brave and ambitious and sought to make her mother to an empire, and so she loved them. And when the time she home to the heir and home to the first, less of a palace than the capital but more of a haven than ever-green Summerhall.

(daeron was the last of the great and one of the mad. his ambition burned hot, hot and high.

dragonstone warned summerhall, despite their many disagreements, despite him being bright and bold and she sullen and harsh. he did not believe her. by then her words were whisps of smoke, all premonition with no bite.

she did not weep for him.)

Her eyes were always far-away. Rhaenys liked to say she was a visionary. 

Wars came and went. Storms raged and passed. There were golden heroes, and she waited for them to come home. There was a silver prince, and she loved him until she found it was not her that haunted his dreams. she loved him still, regardless, to the end.

(aemon dragnknight, that pale star of a man, once asked: _what came first? targaryen madness or targaryen arrival?_

 dragonstone laughed and kissed his cheek. in the firelight she was a darker study of naerys, a dark study of human beauty and human nature. she was not human.

there was no answer she would give freely. instead she asked him _what came after? dragonstone's dream or her wait?_ )

She refused to yield to someone not of her blood. Stannis Baratheon was mad enough to accept her terms, iron enough to break under her demands. She had him push her to boiling fire and call it justice. Such is the nature of just men, to be unwavering and unseeing, hard to bend and easy to lead.

In a ship pursued by others in black waters a woman died, an old man struggled, a soldier fell. There was a new babe in the world. They called her Daenerys, for a dreamer, for the dreams of her brother, now ash in the wind.

Dragonstone burned. Dragonstone, of uncertain birth, was born in a storm. That all the stories agree on.

 

( _what came first? the dragon or the egg?_ young aegon asked. 

and dragonstone laughed and kissed his egg-head and asked _what came first? dragonstone or the storm?_ )


	2. Chapter 2

 

Sunspear, though she is named for the great star, loves the nights. One might scoff and say mayhaps that was why: Sunspear was nothing if not contrary, capricious in all her dealings. Sunspear would laugh in their face and say that surely they did not know nights like those of her land. 

And she would be right, for nights in Dorne are unique in the manner of nights near the desert, here where the sand exales the day's heat and the waves push and pull under the curtain of starshine. The Rhoynar know well the value of shade. The city itself is awake, full of dinner smeels and other scents, too, of the midnight bazaars and spices wine, the lemon gins and cold, sweet as sin teas. Bakes bread and tart olives and sea-salt, skin salt. Sunspear loves the nights for their noise, their covert dealings, the sighs from the pillow houses and the songs from the bards.

The singing most of all. Song means dance and how Sunspear dances! She had danced many a dance with Nymeria, beside each other in battle or bed, and she danced with Daenerys on her wedding night, a foreigner with trembling hands and proud shoulders. Sunspear had lived her well enough, for she too knew the power in weak wrists and shuddering pride. Doran too, learned to dance from her, back when his joints were without fault. Even as a child he had maked up for the lack of great agility by trying to anticipate her moves. 

She danced for Elia and Rhaenys and Aegon, when word came. And danced with Oberyn, late at night, in the terrible days of his grief. Sunspear stepped lightly beside Doran, the few times they stood together, but mostly she spent her days in the desert or the docks, and her nights in the city. Better to remind her people of her love, of her laughing anger. 

It is said you can spot Sunspear by the lightness of her steps, the khol-marks around her eyes, the curve of her flesh. The proud scars in her wrists, the one dragon burn in her breast; all this her people love and adore. Sunspear might be considered lesser than other Cities for the dake of being Dornish, yet Sunspear is bold and dangerous. Grieved, a resentfull mourning that shocked the coldness of the night, left her hot and sharp as a blade's edge. 

Flautists seduce snakes out of reed baskets, here in the dusty stones of her streets, under her leaning buildings, the night shadows gathering like pools of silence. Silence is always deceiving and snakes are poisonous even when sang to, but in the middle of the horror and the fascination, so many people forgot the flautist. There is mastery there, making dangerous nature weave to one side or the other. There is power in being unseen and only heard, admired but unknown. 

The days belong to the desert and the heat, the merciless sky and hard toil. But nights belong to Sunspear, Sunspear sho reaches high with marvelous towers, who dances in dark slow places to dark slow sounds only she can hear (flutes fidless drums drums _drums)._ And in the night, no one sees the flautist, and no one expects the snake. 

 


End file.
